Julie Bowen Luetkemeyer (born March 3, 1970), known professionally as Julie Bowen, is an American actress. She is best known for playing Carol Vessey on Ed (2000–04), Denise Bauer on Boston Legal (2005–07), Sarah Shephard on Lost (2005–07), and Claire Dunphy on the comedy Modern Family (since 2009). The latter earned her six nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, winning in 2011 and 2012.
Bowen has also appeared in films such as Happy Gilmore (1996), Multiplicity (1996), Venus and Mars (2001), Joe Somebody (2001), Kids in America (2005), Sex and Death 101 (2007), Crazy on the Outside (2010), Jumping the Broom (2011), and Horrible Bosses (2011).

Biography

Bowen's older sister, Molly, is an interior designer who has appeared on Clean Sweep, and her younger sister, Annie, is a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco in the HIV/AIDS Division. Bowen has had a pacemaker since her early twenties because of a cardiovascular condition where the regular heartbeat can drop to dangerously low levels.

Bowen married Scott Phillips, a real estate investor and software developer, on September 9, 2004. Their son, Oliver McLanahan Phillips, was born on April 10, 2007. On May 8, 2009, she gave birth to twins, John and Gustav, with whom she was visibly pregnant when shooting the pilot for Modern Family. She is a self-described "low Protestant."

Bowen has stated that motherhood has made her a lot more conservative. In 2002, Bowen donated $1,000 to the campaign of Republican Helen Delich Bentley for Maryland's 2nd district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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